Blue Velvet (1986) Pages: ( 1 ) ( 2 ) ( 3 ) ( 4 ) Background Blue Velvet (1986) is screenwriter and maverick director David Lynch's artistically bizarre cult film. It is an original look at sex, violence, crime and power under the peaceful exterior of small-town Americana in the mid-80s. Beneath the familiar, peaceful, 'American-dream' cleanliness of the daytime scenes lurks sleaziness, prostitution, unrestrained violence, and perversity - powerful and potentially-dangerous sexual forces that may be unleashed if not contained. A controversial film often criticized for its depiction of aberrant sexual behavior, the surrealistic, psychosexual film was a throwback to art films, 50s B-movies and teenage romances, film noir, and the mystery-suspense genre. Although highly ridiculed and disdained when released as an extreme, dark, vulgar and disgusting film, it also won critical praise - Best Film of 1986, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Dennis Hopper) and Best Achievement in Cinematography (Frederick Elmes) by the National Society of Film Critics.

It also received a sole nomination for Best Director from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The plot line of the nightmarish film, a combination of Marquis De Sade sexual fetishism and a Hardy Boys mystery story, is fairly sketchy. An innocent, small-town college student (MacLachlan) in a sleepy town discovers a severed ear, and then finds himself embroiled on the dark side of town (beyond the white picket fence). He witnesses, first as a voyeur, a sexually-depraved, blackmailing relationship between a monstrous, loathsome, nitrous-oxide sniffing kidnapper (Dennis Hopper) and an abused/brutalized mother and fragile nightclub singer (Isabella Rossellini). In some ways, the two male leads represent the two dichotomous sides of life (e.g., light/dark, normalcy/aberration, attraction/repulsion, innocence/experience, perversion/love, virtue/base desires, etc.) that struggle for dominance.

After the hideous crime of violated innocence is revealed, the vision of the innocent girl-next-door (Laura Dern) is restored - the "Blinding Light of Love." The Story The film's credits (viewed with fluid, scripted type-lettering) play above a slowly undulating blue velvet, fabric backdrop as Angelo Badalamenti's sensual string score floridly plays. The film dissolves into an unnaturally brilliant, visually lush, boldly colorful opening with patriotic hues (bright red, white, and blue) and a nostalgic, dream-like view of a clean, conforming, pastoral America a la Norman Rockwell. From nearly cloudless, clear aqua-blue skies, the camera tilts and pans slowly down to a clean white picket fence, in front of which are planted perfect, budding blood-red roses and yellow tulips. 60s teen idol/crooner Bobby Vinton sings his rendition of the title song "Blue Velvet" (a song of longing for a woman, written by Lee Morris and Bernie Wayne). Idyllic small-town images are presented in silent slow-motion, with hyper-realistic light and color.

A bright-red fire engine truck tranquilly glides down the suburban US street - a friendly fireman on the running board waves with a dalmatian next to him. At a school cross-walk, children are safely allowed to walk across the street by a uniformed, matronly crossing guard holding a Stop sign. Outside one of the houses [the Beaumont house], a paunchy man effortlessly waters his bright-green lawn with a hose. His wife is inside seated on the couch, watching a daytime mystery/film noir on television (an image of a hand holding a pistol fills the screen). The husband finds that the snake-like hose is kinked and wrapped around some of the shrubbery, causing the hose faucet spigot to hiss loudly and leak water under the increased pressure. Then, the scenes of the superficial, ideal American dream in the green garden (of Eden) suddenly explode. He spasms and grabs his neck as he experiences a heart seizure and stroke, falling on his back to the ground and squirming around in agonizing pain - but still gripping the hose, phallically curled around him.

Water wildly sprays from the hose into the air, causing a dog to jump about on his chest and playfully snap and drink at the stream of water shooting upward. An innocent small boy in white diapers (and eating a popsicle) waddles down the driveway to look at the man on the ground, also unaware of what has happened. With directoral insight, the camera moves from above ground and burrows into the lush, thick green grass for a closer view of a terrifying, diseased underworld within the placid-seeming universe. Penetrating below, it finds a swarm of hungry, ugly black bugs - a metaphor for the perverse, horrible evil that lurks beneath the idyllic surface of picture-perfect life. A few warring, ravenous beetles - ugly insects - are in a ferocious, predatory, and cannibalistic fight for life, amplified aurally and visually. The next shot is the welcoming billboard of the town: "Welcome to Lumberton," and a slow pan views the waterfront of the logging town.

A jingle from the local radio station plays a chorus of "Lumberton," and while the sounds of a chain saw and falling timber play, the radio announcer ominously invites the locals: It's a sunny, woodsy day in Lumberton, so get those chain saws out. This is the mighty W-O-O-D. At the sound of the falling tree, it's 9:30. There's a whole lot of wood out there, so let's get goin'. As the radio advertisement plays, the next scene displays a handsome young man dressed in a dark coat jacket casually walking along a road in a woodsy area. He boyishly picks up a rock and throws it into a vacant field. In a hospital sickbed, the man who suffered the seizure - Mr. Tom Beaumont (Jack Harvey) is hospitalized. Unable to speak, he is connected to a oxygen-mask breathing device (a foreshadowing!) and his head is held perfectly still and incapacitated [in sexual terms - he is emasculated].

His son, the clean-cut, all-American boy/trekker Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) is ushered into the room to see his father - he grasps his father's hand. Beaumont painfully tries to communicate with his son, but his words are incomprehensible and inhuman and no words are spoken during an awkward silence. After his short visit to the hospital, Jeffrey walks moodily back along the same route. He returns to the open field near the woods where, as he goes to throw more rocks, he discovers a severed and decaying human ear (covered with crawling ants) in the tall grass. After plopping the ear in a brown paper bag that he finds, he promptly delivers it to the Lumberton Police Department, specifically to Detective Williams (George Dickerson), one of his neighbors, located in office 221. (A college student, Jeffrey is home from school/college to visit his father, the local hardware store owner, while he recovers from his debilitating stroke.) The ear is taken to the coroner's office for forensic study.

In the coroner's office while the ear is examined on a medical dish, the coroner explains what can be determined in a detached, clinical manner: ...Sex, blood type, whether or not the ear came off a dead person. Also, it looks like the ear was cut off with scissors. The film cuts to the next scene - a sharp pair of scissors cuts a "POLICE LINE - DO NOT CROSS" yellow tape, as officers rope off the wooded area and search for more clues. That night in his own home, Jeffrey descends down a dark staircase from his brightly lit bedroom at the top of the stairs. He enters the Beaumont living room where his mother (Priscilla Pointer) and Aunt Barbara (Frances Bay), who is knitting, are watching another mystery on television (an ominous image of a man's legs climbing a staircase). There is little communication between Jeffrey and his mother - she is immersed in her own fantasy world. He tells them that he is going out to take a nocturnal walk around the neighborhood, but not "down by Lincoln," after being admonished by his aunt against wandering there - the dark side of town.

As he walks along the dark neighborhood street, sombre music plays as the trees above him display mysterious shadows. The camera zooms in for a gigantic close-up of the severed ear and descends slowly into the disembodied, dirty ear, as if entering a conduit to probe into its depths (like spiraling into a conch shell or into a brain), accompanied by a loud roaring sound on the soundtrack - a visual clue to the impact of sounds and aural observation. [The camera motion signifies Jeffrey's feverish, dream-like descent into his own subconscious. From this point until the end of the film, Jeffrey takes a psychic, internal journey through his own dark side of desires and fears.] At Detective Williams' home after knocking on the front door and being greeted by Mrs. Williams, Jeffrey is ushered into the detective's study, where a girl-next-door portrait of the police detective's daughter Sandy (Laura Dern) is on the desk - her first image in the film. Although curious, Jeffrey is stiffly told, in hard-boiled dialogue, to keep quiet and secretive about his grisly anatomical find (is the strangely elusive Detective knowledgeable of the corruption, or only protective of his family and other law-abiding citizens?).

He is not to ask any more questions until the confidential case is solved: Detective Williams: Well now Jeffrey, you found something which is very interesting to us. Very interesting. I know you must be curious to know more. But I'm afraid I'm gonna have to ask you now not only not to tell anyone about your find but also not to ask more about the case. One day, when it's all sewed up, I'll let you know all the details. Right now, though, I can't. Jeffrey: I understand. I'm just real curious like you said. Detective Williams: (confiding) I was the same way myself when I was your age. I guess that's what got me into this business. Jeffrey: It must be great. Detective Williams: It's horrible too. Outside in the darkness, Jeffrey hears a voice from the blackness asking: Are you the one that found the ear? Girl-next-door Sandy emerges wearing a billowy pink dress - a true vision of innocence. She comes up to him, remembering him from Central High School where she is a senior and he was a recent graduate. Coyly and without her father's knowledge, she reveals secrets of her father's police affairs to Jeffrey.

She tells him "bits and pieces" about what she has learned about the investigation of the severed ear by eavesdropping - using her own ear to learn mysterious details about corruption teeming around them: Sandy: There are a couple of cases I get mixed up on...but one thing that keeps coming up is this woman singer. She lives in an apartment building that is real close to your house. It's also close to the field where you found the ear. Jeffrey (naively): It's a strange world, isn't it? Sandy: Yeah. Sandy's information urges Jeffrey forward into the mystery. She explains that they had the woman "under surveillance" for a couple of months, but it is presently not her father's case. Sandy offers to show him the woman's apartment building that is close by, further encouraging his curiosity and ultimately leading him into contact with the "woman singer." While leading him to "Lincoln St." (where Jeffrey had earlier promised not to go), a group of rowdy guys in a passing car shout suggestive taunts at them. Sandy points out the brick building where the singer lives on the 7th Floor. The camera pauses on the street sign.

(Their attempts to investigate the underlying mystery, like amateur Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys-style sleuths, confront them with a variety of kinky, nocturnal, repellent, inhuman (insect-like) characters, an unsettling universe inside the head of the ear that is their only piece of evidence.) In an obvious parallel to Frank Capra's film It's a Wonderful Life (1946) , the scene of George Bailey and Mary walking along together after the school dance, Jeffrey walks along the peaceful night-time sidewalk with Sandy. [The film parodies typical 50s teen romances, portraying Jeffrey's and Sandy's good-natured friendship along suburban sidewalks, in his convertible, and in a local malt shop/diner.] When they pass one of the houses on the street, Jeffrey can only recollect grotesquely about a strange old school friend - Jeffrey: I used to know a kid who lived there...he had the biggest tongue in the world. (They laugh together) Sandy: What happened to him? Jeffrey: I don't know. He moved away. All my old friends are gone.

He also tries to impress Sandy during their walk with his quirky charm by performing a humorous "chicken walk." Inside Beaumont's Hardware Store the next day where Jeffrey works while his father is hospitalized, Jeffrey is delighted by one of the store employees Double Ed, who can see and has a photographic memory and knows the location of every item in the store - although he is blind and taps with a white cane. He demonstrates his secret method of deducing how many fingers Jeffrey holds up in the air. Jeffrey also yells out to one of the other employees, asking to borrow a bug-spraying rig. Ed tells him: "If you want to spray for bugs Jeffrey, it causes us no pain." That afternoon in the bright daylight, Jeffrey pulls up in his red convertible outside Central High School as schoolkids leave the area, recognizing Sandy with a group of her girlfriends.

Alongside the curb, he calls out to her: "Are you hungry or thirsty or both?" She tells her girlfriends to promise not to tell her football-playing boyfriend Mike because "it's not what you think." Sandy gets into Jeffrey's car to join him and again play out their innocent attitudes, as they fall into unacknowledged love: Jeffrey: I don't want to cause any trouble. Sandy: I'm here, aren't I? Again, Sandy shows her willingness to sneak around, keep secrets, and pursue mysterious things behind other people's backs. The camera is positioned in the back seat of the convertible as the couple drives to the local Arlene's Diner. A large, log-carrying truck roars into view in front of the diner. Seated in one of the restaurant's booths, Jeffrey consults with Sandy, telling her of his strategy to take risks and learn more in life: Jeffrey: There are opportunities in life for gaining knowledge and experience. Sometimes, it's necessary to take a risk. I got to thinking. I'll bet someone could learn alot by getting into that woman's apartment. You know, sneak in, hide, and observe. Sandy: Sneak into her apartment? Jeffrey: Yeah.

Sandy: Are you crazy? Jeffrey, she's possibly involved in murder. This is givin' me the creeps. Jeffrey convinces her to settle down because he has devised an assaultive plot to get into the woman's apartment on Lincoln St. Disguised as a pest-control exterminator with a bug-spraying rig, he will eventually find a way to open a window that he can crawl into later. Abetted by Sandy who will knock on the door and pose as a Jehovah's Witness carrying 'Awake' magazines, the woman's attention will be diverted while Jeffrey jimmies open the window. Sandy's conscience makes her skeptical and she questions their illegal, risky 'breaking and entering' into the apartment - because "it is too weird." But she is also intrigued by his daring and willingness to sleuth and investigate: Sandy: I don't know. I mean, it sounds like a good daydream, but actually doing it is too weird. It's too dangerous. Jeffrey: Sandy, let's just try the first part. No one will suspect us. Because no one would think two people like us would be crazy enough to do something like this. Sandy: You have a point there.

At the Deep River Apartments on Lincoln St. before Jeffrey (wearing an exterminator's uniform) heads off for the entrance, Sandy tells him the singer's name: "Dorothy Vallens, Seventh Floor. Look on her mailbox for the number, bright boy." After learning her apartment number (#710) in the dark lobby, he notices that there is a cardboard sign pasted on the elevator: "Elevator Out of Order Please use Stairs" - a neon sign hums and blinks. Jeffrey makes the long climb up the stairs and knocks on her door. Opening her chained door only slightly at first, a tired, sultry, glossy red-lipped and red-dressed Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rosselini, daughter of Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini) lets him in to spray the baseboards in the creamy white kitchen. The apartment is decorated with a few green houseplants - its walls are a lurid pink color. Other colors are rich dark crimson reds and dirty browns. Another knock at the door causes Dorothy to comment: "Grand Central Station," but it is not Sandy.

A man dressed in a yellow sports coat (a suspicious looking man later called 'The Yellow Man' who wears a Yellow Jacket - a veiled reference to a dangerous flying insect - Fred Pickler) stands there for a moment and eyes him suspiciously. Dorothy identifies the exterminator to him: "It's only the bug man." (Appropriately, Jeffrey is a bug exterminator, presently killing real insects but later choosing to exterminate 'human insects' or criminal underground, nocturnal gangsters.) When she takes the stranger to the door, Jeffrey spies a duplicate spare apartment key hanging in the kitchen and quickly takes it to let himself back in later that evening. The next step in Jeffrey's plan is to ask Sandy to accompany him at 8 o'clock that night as a decoy date (without boyfriend Mike's knowledge) - to watch Dorothy perform in a sleazy nightclub. They go to the Slow Club on Route 7, decorated on the outside by a pink neon sign and antlers.

Sandy and Jeffrey clink glasses of Heineken beer and toast to "an interesting experience." On stage while bathed in the blue fog of stagelights, "The Blue Lady" nightclub singer Dorothy Vallens with painted sensuality (she wears a blue velvet dress, bright aqua-marine blue eye shadow, bright red lipstick, and a black wig) performs a sexy, slow rendition of the title song "Blue Velvet," singing into a 1930s-style Art Deco microphone. Blue Velvet (1986) - Cast, Ratings, Awards Blue Velvet Blue Velvet (1986) Thriller | R | 2 hours | September 19, 1986 (USA) Be the first to review +4 Director: David Lynch Writer: David Lynch College student Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) returns home after his father has a stroke. When he discovers a severed ear in an abandoned field, Beaumont teams up with detective's daughter Sandy Williams (Laura Dern) to solve the mystery.

They believe beautiful lounge singer Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini) may be connected with the case, and Beaumont finds himself becoming drawn into her dark, twisted world, where he encounters sexually depraved psychopath Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper). See All Movies Did You Like The Movie? Advertisement More Movies With Kyle MacLachlan How famous is the cast of "Blue Velvet"? PrettyFamous Score The PrettyFamous score quantifies the fame of the film's cast members based on the number of awards the actors and actresses have ever been nominated for, combined box office gross of all the movies the actors and actresses have been in, and the current internet popularity of the cast. Ranking Every Matthew McConaughey Movie From Worst to Best PrettyFamous tracked Matthew McConaughey's career by ranking his entire filmography (no matter what size his role) to date from worst to first. 7 minute read › Blue Velvet (1986) | The Film Spectrum Blue Velvet (1986) Producer: Fred C.

Caruso (De Laurentiis Entertainment Group) Photography: Frederick Elmes Music: Angelo Badalamenti, David Lynch Cast: Dennis Hopper, Isabella Rossellini, Kyle MacLachlan, Laura Dern, Hope Lange, Dean Stockwell, George Dickerson, Priscilla Pointer, Frances Bay, Jack Harvey, Ken Stovitz, Brad Dourif, Jack Nance, J. Michael Hunter The Rundown Final Thoughts Introduction Ask mainstreamers their favorite movies of the ’80s, and you’ll likely hear some combination of The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Back to the Future (1985), The Breakfast Club (1985) and When Harry Met Sally (1989). But if you ask most critics, it’s the erotic thriller Blue Velvet, written and directed by the wonderfully weird David Lynch, who shows his ’86 colleague Top Gun the true definition of a “danger zone.” In the 2002 Sight & Sound critics poll, David Thomson voted Blue Velvet not just his favorite movie of the ’80s, but his favorite film of all time.

Thomson sang the highest of praises, saying, “It would be as hard to advance on Blue Velvet as it must have been to work after Citizen Kane.” (A) That sentiment was echoed by Peter Travers, who called Blue Velvet a “perverse masterwork” and ranked it #9 in Rolling Stone‘s 100 Maverick Movies . Why, then, is there a backlash from mainstream viewers, who gave higher box office receipts to 76 other movies that year? Why does the public rate it a 7.8 on IMDB? Why did Roger Ebert give it just one star in 1986? And why does it still only get two stars on my Comcast cable box, compared to the 92% rating on rottentomatoes? The answer: Blue Velvet is not only odd, but it goes for something that transcends cinema. As a first-time viewer, you share in the main character’s uncomfortable departure from your safe movie-going existence. You go along with it, because you’re intrigued, but by the time the velvet curtain drops, you aren’t sure what to make of it. Wasn’t half the movie campy, corny, even poorly written?

And how does that compute with the other half, which is the exact opposite — a brutally real underworld? Finally, you contemplate it long enough and you realize the corniness and brutality are both there for a reason: two contrasting views on the world around us, presented in two contrasting styles by a director daring enough to challenge us and to comment on the film medium itself. Siskel and Ebert famously clashed over this very notion. My goal, in this case, is to convert you from Eberts to Siskels: Plot Summary Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) works in his father’s hardware store in a sleepy little lumber town, aptly named Lumberton. Here, all appears normal, until one day Jeffrey stumbles across a human ear in a field and takes it to his neighbor, Detective John Williams (George Dickerson). Unsatisfied with letting the police handle it, Jeffrey decides to conduct his own private investigation. He enlists the detective’s daughter, Sandy (Laura Dern), to dig up information about the case, and the two plot their amateur detective work from the booths of a diner.

The investigation quickly leads them to battered nightclub singer Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini), who performs bizarre renditions of Bobby Vinton while bathed in blue light. Craving more, the two decide to break into Dorothy’s apartment, but once inside, Jeffrey learns just how deep he’s in. He’s stumbled across a complex kidnapping scheme, in which a drug-addicted lunatic, Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper), blackmails Dorothy into sex by holding her son and husband hostage. As Jeffrey gets closer to solving the mystery, he grows physically closer to Dorothy and psychologically closer to Frank in a way that terrifies him. Screenplay Lynch’s script is a masterwork with so many nuances you don’t notice the first time around — like Frank saying the phrase, “Now it’s dark,” each time the film takes a darker turn. We’ll explore these more as we progress through this review, but before we dive into those depths — before we dive under the grass of Jeffrey’s front lawn — we should first examine the well-cut grass on the surface — the unraveling mystery plot. Is there a better catalyst than finding a severed ear? We’re instantly hooked. At each step, Lynch sucks us in more.

We know only darkness awaits, but we press on anyway in an almost obsessed curiosity. Why do it, Sandy asks? To paraphrase Jeffrey, it’s because, “We are seeing something that was always hidden. We’re involved in a mystery.” And not just any mystery; one that’s #8 on the AFI’s Top Mysteries of All Time . The mystery plot is what makes Blue Velvet Lynch’s most accessible film, save for maybe Elephant Man (1982). It’s far less ambiguous than Eraserhead (1977), which Lynch brags no critic has ever interpreted correctly, and Mulholland Dr. (2001), where he provides “clues” on the DVD booklet but refuses to reveal the answers. For all its weirdness, Blue Velvet at least feigns a clear conclusion. The villain is destroyed, the conflict is resolved, and the two young sleuths come out more mature. Still, as Dorothy takes her son back into her arms, and we hear the lyrics, “I still can see blue velvet through my tears,” we wonder whether these characters are scarred forever. Like all good scripts, we’re left satisfied, but also left to wonder.

The bittersweet finale is befitting of a script that mines Hitchcockian suspense and dark comedy from the same set pieces. One second we’re terrified as Frank chases Jeffrey into Dorothy’s apartment; the next we’re laughing at a hilarious police radio bit. As Lynch says, “Ideas that string themselves together, they don’t always neatly form a one-genre film. The idea of handcuffing yourself to a genre is, I think, pretty absurd.” Frank and Dorothy: Hopper and Rossellini Still, the greatest part of Lynch’s script is the depth of its characters. Frank Booth is as complex a character as you’ll see, stuck somewhere between supplicant child and dominant male, referring to himself as “Daddy,” then calling Dorothy “Mommy,” and saying, “Baby wants to f*ck.” He is unable to communicate on a normal level, which prevents him from properly expressing his deep affection for Dorothy.

His constant spouts of profanity are his only way of expressing himself, so that one minute he’s engrossed in a song, and the next, he’s shutting it off and shouting, “Let’s hit the f*cking road!” For a performance so memorable, it’s crazy to think Hopper doesn’t enter the picture until 42 minutes in. Once he’s in, you’ll never forget it — a monster cursing uncontrollably, downing bourbon and inhaling nitrous-oxide through an oxygen mask. It’s a credit to Hopper’s charm that he could take a character this vile and turn him into a charismatic figure quoted by everyone from Freddy Kreuger to Pauly Shore (see “Pop Culture” below). It was the performance of his career, voted #36 on the AFI’s 50 Greatest Villains. Hopper said he understood Frank, that in a way he was Frank, as a former addict who directed the drug-laced Easy Rider (1969). Hopper brought these hallucinatory experiences to the screen, like the notion of studying his own hand, just to make sure it’s there.

Frank Booth was Hopper’s first role since getting out of rehab, and thus resurrected his career, along with his Oscar-nominated alcoholic dad in Hoosiers (1986) the same year. As much as I love Hoosiers, the Academy had once again made the safe pick over the deserving pick. Later, Hopper would tell Bob Costas that his drug use was unnecessarily dangerous, pointing to other actors who have reached dark places through simple research. To that point, some of his best moments come when he’s not a raging lunatic. There are occasional moments of tenderness, like getting caught up in the music during Dean Stockwell’s rendition of “In Dreams,” or clutching a piece of Dorothy’s blue velvet robe at the nightclub as she sings. Both examples show Hopper’s desire to make Frank a human first, monster second. The above scene also showcases the phenomenal contribution of Isabella Rossellini, daughter of actress Ingrid Bergman (Casablanca) and Italian filmmaker Roberto Rossellini (Rome, Open City). Rossellini endured a grueling shoot, asked to expose herself to Hopper and walk down the street entirely naked.

The performance earned her an Independent Spirit Award, but for years she blamed herself for the film’s mixed reviews and second guessed Lynch’s decision to use her instead of Helen Mirren. (F) Hopefully now, we can all look back on the film and appreciate how much she put herself out there. Her character is every bit as complex as Frank. She’s a woman caught dangerously between repulsion and attraction, hit so many times she now considers it affectionate, and one who adopts Frank’s tactics — “Don’t look at me!” — in order to feel the power of her abuser. Her public affair with Lynch only adds to the dynamic, especially considering that Lynch was also romantically involved with Dern. Jeff and Sandy: Kyle and Laura Also the daughter of famous parents (Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd), Laura Dern is the perfect counterpoint to Rossellini. She may be most famous for Jurassic Park (1993), but she first gained stardom as the beautiful flower of David Lynch, a relationship that continued into Wild at Heart (1990), for which Lynch won the Palm d’Or at Cannes and where Dern played a much flashier role.

In Blue Velvet, she’s reminiscent of the virginal Juliette Lewis in Cape Fear (1990), epitomizing quiet innocence and named after the malt shop memory of Sandra Dee. Taking all this into account, the casting of MacLachlan as Jeffrey becomes all the more interesting. Not only does MacLachlan look like Lynch, he’s now cast as Lynch’s on-screen proxy, caught between Lynch’s two women. Lynch must have seen a reflection of his own suburban youth in MacLachlan, who he cast in the commercial flop Dune (1984). Blue Velvet was just his second performance, but his synergy with Lynch led to his casting as the lead in Lynch’s cult TV series Twin Peaks (1990). Today, you know him as Trey from Sex and the City (1998) and Orson from Desperate Housewives (2004). You might call the film “Green Velvet” due to the inexperience of most of the cast, with MacLachlan in just his second career role, Dern in one of her earliest roles and Rossellini in her self-proclaimed “second” major role.

You could argue this makes them look amateurish next to the veteran Hopper, but in a weird way, in this film, it actually works. It plays into the phoniness Lynch wants from his Lumbertonians in a world that needs to be over-the-top — MacLachlan’s “chicken walk” — in order to set up a false utopia that he can both expose and demolish. Real vs. Unreal: Suburbia’s Dark Underbelly Alright, now we’re starting to dive beneath the grass. If the mystery plot and acting are the surface level hooks, the fertilizer that allows it to grow are the ideas that sparked the creation. Lynch says it was sparked by three ideas — red lips, green lawns and Bobby Vinton’s “Blue Velvet.” The creative process in bringing these ideas into fruition is a wonder of Lynch’s imagination. Setting the precedent for American Beauty (1999), Lynch presents a suburban neighborhood that’s richer than anything in the real world, but one that features all the elements Americans fancy their neighborhoods to be. Colorful flowers. White picket fences. All-American bungalow-style homes. Everything is impossibly perfect, down to a fireman waving directly at the camera.

But that’s just it. Lynch wants a utopic setting on the surface to contrast with the incredibly dark secrets that lie underneath. The criminals Andy Griffith locks up in Mayberry must come from somewhere. So as Lynch’s camera penetrates a perfectly-green lawn to show a hoard of insects fighting beneath the grass, viewers realize that Lumberton, like many other “perfect” neighborhoods, contains two separate worlds: one of rosy optimism, and another of animal instinct. It’s no coincidence that during the dark sequences, the performances, and the writing, are much more realistic than the alternate reality of the Lumberton-Sandy-chicken-walk utopia. This is precisely the point — to prove how artificial our ideas of nostalgic America really are. Lynch wants us to acknowledge that a darker side exists, and we can’t just escape it by moving to the suburbs. “He wants to set you up,” Gene Siskel said. “He’s a director.

And he wants to play you — like all the great directors want to do — he wants to play you like a piano, which is have you smile and then swing you right into some depression.” This notion of “playing the audience” gives Lynch license to alter the idea of “authenticity” itself. Those who poke fun at the inauthenticity of Blue Velvet have become the butt of its joke. Like the conniving artist he is, Lynch actually invites you to criticize the hokeyness, so he can sit back and laugh at you for not getting it. Notice the way Detective Williams responds to Jeffrey showing him the ear, taking one glance and saying, “Yes, that’s a human ear alright.” His voice never raises a decibel above monotone. Notice also how melodramatic the music becomes when Sandy first steps out of the darkness and into the light for a sidewalk stroll straight from the ’50s teen handbook. It’s a mockery of the love interest archetype of classic Americana. From this alone, we should realize we’re entering a larger-than-life, highly-stylized world. Later, when their car pulls up outside a church, Jeffrey gives an over-the-top delivery: “Why are there people like Frank?

Why is there so much trouble in this world?” With a pipe organ playing in the background, Sandy recounts a dream about robins coming to bring light to a world of darkness, and that there will be “trouble until the robins come.” This prophecy is later fulfilled as the light of Lumberton returns and Jeffrey and Sandy stare at a mechanical-looking robin, tilting its head to the side in robotic fashion. Hopper called it one the film’s wonderful little quirks, but it also carries meaning. (F) It’s phony just the way the waving fireman is phony. The question becomes whether Lynch is leaving us on a note of optimism, saying love is the only way out of the madness, or if he’s saying humans are outwardly phony and are actually most real in their compulsive, fetishistic, emotionally-confused state? No matter your take, the message is that the darkness is never far. It’s barely even beneath the surface, as ordinary as a guy yelling, “Hey Babe!” at Sandy in town. Jeffrey just don’t realize it until it’s too late, lying face down in the mud in a Lumberton lumber yard.

What a far cry from the pristine Lumberton billboards at the outset of the film. Innocence Lost: The Noir Night Journey At the start of the film, Jeffrey is oblivious to this sinister underbelly. His false confidence, paired with a driving curiosity, makes him the perfect hero in what is arguably one of the finest examples of neo-noir. Like his genre’s predecessors, Jeffrey embarks on a classic night journey the minute he descends the stairs in silhouette and exits into an entirely Lynchian world. It reminds me of the shot of Faye Dunaway descending the stairs to join Warren Beatty in Bonnie and Clyde (1967), only in a much darker world. As Travers writes, he “drops through the rabbit hole of Norman Rockwell America.” (B) As Jeffrey comes down the stairs, note how his mother and aunt sit on the couch watching a violent noir crime film. Outwardly, they have sought safety in a perfect suburban neighborhood, but inwardly, they desire this violent TV content.

Lynch purposely holds on the TV, showing a man climbing the stairs in suspense, because it mirrors Jeffrey’s own descent down the stairs, showing he’s about to enter the violent world his loved ones crave from their televisions. After exiting his home, watch how he and Sandy walk in and out of pockets of light caused by intervals of darkness between homes. The symbolism here is genius, as between the “light” of these suburban homes exists a foreboding darkness that is soon to engulf these two innocents. The curiosity of youth will lead to a loss of innocence, and Jeffrey and Sandy aren’t the first. Detective Williams says he was just like Jeffrey as a kid, full of curiosity, and that’s what got him into law enforcement. However, when Jeffrey says, “That’s great,” the detective responds, “It’s also horrible.” When you dig, all you get is dirty. And the deeper we dig into others’ dark sides, the more we learn about ourselves. For Jeffrey, the revelation is a nightmare. At one point, Sandy tells him, “I don’t know if you’re a detective or pervert,” and we spend the rest of the film exploring that dichotomy.

Jeffrey himself doesn’t know the answer until the moment he has sex with Dorothy and, at her request, beats her for arousal. It forces Jeffrey to admit Frank was right when he said, “You’re like me.” Realizing he’s capable of the exact same evil, he sobs uncontrollably. They’re tears for himself and tears for humanity. Voyeurism & Complicity We as viewers are just as guilty in all this as Jeffrey. Like Jeffrey’s mom and aunt watching the crime show on TV, we willingly partake in Jeffrey’s journey with him, thanks to POV shots from Jeffrey’s perspective, looking out of a closet door to see horrendous sex acts. At this point, we righteous case-solvers have been tricked into an uncomfortable voyeurism. We have been so intent on figuring out this mystery, on wanting to find out more, that we have been exposed as closet perverts. What’s the consequence? We’re forced to witness the most horrific rape scene in movie history, worse than Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (1971) and Hitchcock’s Frenzy (1972).

WARNING: This video may be the most disturbing scene you’ll ever see: Shocking does not even begin to describe it. In fact, it was the brutality of this scene alone that drove Ebert to his negative review. He complained that Rossellini was “degraded, slapped around, humiliated and undressed in front of the camera.” (C) Gene Siskel took the opposite stance, saying the film did for him what Psycho (1960) had: “Eyes open and oh my God, we’re really getting in over our heads.” (D) A Surrealist Painter’s Touch You’ll note the above rape scene ends with Frank saying, “You stay alive baby. Do it for Van Gogh.” This is clearly a reference to the chopped off ear of Dorothy’s husband, whom Frank holds hostage. The Van Gogh references are fitting, as Lynch’s own previous career was as a painter. His films are proof, showing an understanding of textures and moods, lights and darks, and the power of a consistent color palette. His painterly background no doubt helped his collaboration with cinematographer Frederick Elmes (Wild at Heart). These gorgeous compositions can also be symbolic, like the POV wide shot of Dorothy’s apartment.

Not only do the living room purples please us aesthetically, the decision to hold the shot as Dorothy ventures down a side hallway emphasizes her emotional “smallness,” while keeping emphasis on the couch, where Jeffrey finds a clue. We must also remember Lynch was a surrealist painter, thus painting his Blue Velvet canvas with scenes of experimental, heightened reality. Such an approach has earned Lynch the unofficial title of “king of the weird,” but he’s actually just one in a long line of experimental filmmakers. In fact, the ant-covered ear in Blue Velvet is an homage to the ant-covered hand in the classic film Un Chien Andalou (1928), co-created by Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali. Such surrealism comes out in many forms in Blue Velvet, from slow-mo sequences to stretched faces to characters disappearing from the frame, all set animalistic roars, revving engines and some of the wildest sound design you’ve ever heard.

In this ream, Lynch equates Frank with flames, forcing Dorothy to turn off a lamp and light a candle before the rape, saying, “Now, it’s dark.” The flame image returns multiple times in Jeffrey’s dreams, until finally a lamp goes out as Frank is extinguished. What a fitting metaphor for Frank, the kind of guy who lights up the room, burns hot and flames out. Parallelism & Familiar Image The flame. The light. The dream catcher. “Now, it’s dark.” They’re all examples of repetition. Throughout the film, Lynch demonstrates a mastery of familiar images, whether it’s the pointy propeller hat of Dorothy’s son, the yellow suit of the Yellow Man, or the ever-present logs of the town’s industrical core. Even the dialogue proves cyclical, like Frank saying a love letter from him is a “bullet from a gun,” to the song “Love Letters” on the soundtrack as we actually see bullets fly. One of my favorite familiar images is that of scissors, from a coroner saying the ear was cut off with scissors to Lynch “cutting” to a shot of scissors snipping police tape.

It’s more than just a cool jump cut; it’s our first hint that someone within the police department is in on the crime. The motif of returns horrifically as Frank appears to takes a pair of scissors to Dorothy’s genitals. The repetition not only applies to props, it also applies to entire set pieces. Take, for instance, Jeffrey’s recurring trips up and down the stairwell of Dorothy’s apartment building. Most famously, there’s the parallelism of the ear, which Lynch called “an opening into another world.” (F) While the camera plunges into the severed ear as Jeffrey begins his “night journey,” it pulls out of Jeffrey’s own ear during the film’s resolution. Perverts could make gross connections to Kubrick’s notion of the “old in/out.” I just think it’s great parallelism. Finally, Lynch provides the bookends of flowers, firemen and dissolves from a blue sky to blue velvet curtain. From start to finish, curtain to curtain, the film is entirely under Lynch’s control. He absolutely deserved his Oscar nomination for Best Director, losing to Oliver Stone for Platoon (1986).

It remains the only Academy Award nomination of his career, but when he finally won the Palm d’Or for Wild at Heart (1990), I’ve got to think it was the culmination of momentum building since Blue Velvet. Enveloping Music Fitting for a film about a sliced-off ear, Lynch demonstrates a great ear for music. How can a movie be so grotesque and sound so angelic at the same time? The score makes us feel as though we’re floating through the entire film. It’s a phenomenal achievement by composer Angelo Badalamenti, collaborating with Lynch for the first time and sparking a great relationship that led to Wild at Heart (1990), Twin Peaks (1990), Lost Highway (1997) and Mulholland Dr. (2001). Badalamenti has us from the first note. His brooding score over a waving blue velvet curtain is as hypnotic as any opening credit sequence since Vertigo (1958). From there, Lynch moves right into Bobby Vinton’s deceptively cheery title song.

As previously stated, it was one of the three things — along with red lips and green lawns — that sparked the film’s creation, and it’s easy to see why. Few songs capture the elusive dreams of Mr. Lonely better than “Blue Velvet,” which topped the Billboard charts in 1963. The next time we hear Vinton’s song, it’s being sung by Dorothy on stage, bathed in blue light and wearing blue eye shadow, red lipstick and a dark wig to hide behind. I’ve got to think this scene inspired the “Silencio” scene in Mulholland Dr. After this disturbing take on Vinton, Lynch goes to work on another “golden oldie.” In perhaps the weirdest scene of the film — and by that I mean my favorite — Dean Stockwell lip-syncs Roy Orbison’s “In Dreams” to a room of fat women, using a work lamp as a microphone. The son of Prince Charming in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Stockwell was a holdover from Old Hollywood, having worked with legends like Orson Welles and Gene Kelly.

His appearance in both Blue Velvet and Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas (1984) vaulted him to an Oscar nomination for Married to the Mob (1988) and a starring role on TV’s Quantum Leap (1989). Minutes later, Lynch uses the same Orbinson song to create another image I have yet to shake — Frank reciting “candy colored” lyrics as he applies lipstick to his own lips, transfers it to Jeffrey with a kiss, then proceeds to beat him down. Frank’s entourage (including Brad Dourif from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) puts “In Dreams” on the cassette player of Frank’s car, prompting a fat woman to belly dance on the roof. After all these re-workings of pop music classics, we finally get an original work, “Mysteries of Love.” With music by Badalamenti and lyrics by Lynch himself, the song brings an overpowering emotion that gives the film its transcendent feel into the end credits. Pop Culture Just like Blue Velvet took pop culture staples (Bobby Vinton, Roy Orbison) and made them its own, countless works have referenced Blue Velvet since.

Lynch himself created the Golden Globe-winning Twin Peaks (1990), which is more or less a Blue Velvet spinoff, featuring a murder mystery set in a similar Northwest town, starring McLachlan with music by Badalamenti. In A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987), screenwriter Frank Darabont and Wes Craven reference Dennis Hopper by having Freddy Krueger say, “Where’s the f*ckin’ bourbon?” In Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988), Jessica Rabbit plays a Dorothy Vallens type character, taking the stage against a blue velvet curtain backdrop and even quoting Dorothy’s line, “He used to make me laugh.” In Robocop 2 (1990), a scientist named Frank develops a drug called “Blue Velvet.” Quentin Tarantino references the “severed ear” in the famous scene from Reservoir Dogs (1992).

And in Clerks (1994), Jay and Silent Bob quote Hopper’s, “I’ll f*ck anything that moves!” The most obvious reference comes in the stoner comedy Bio Dome (1996), where Pauley Shore and Stephen Baldwin do their own hits of Nitrous Oxide, saying, “Dennis Hopper, Blue Velvet!” The film even had an effect outside the TV and film culture. Hopper’s shouts of, “Heineken? F*ck that sh*t!” actually galvanized a generation to reconsider Pabst Blue Ribbon, and today it’s one of the most popular Hipster beers. Final Thoughts Such lowbrow pop culture references are almost an insult to the depth of Lynch’s goals with Blue Velvet. Then again, perhaps they play right into his notion of contrasting pop camp with disturbing, gritty realism. Love it or hate it, Blue Velvet sticks with you long after its velvet curtain drops.

And for anyone who says, “David Lynch movies are just too strange for me,” Lynch provides the perfect rebuttal here in Blue Velvet: “It’s a strange world, isn’t it?” David Thomson said it was the last transcendent movie experience he’s had in theaters, save maybe The Piano (1993). He says Blue Velvet offered him “a kind of passionate involvement with both the story and the making of a film, so that [he] was simultaneously moved by the enactment on screen and by discovering that a new director had made the medium alive and dangerous again.” (A) There’s also evidence that Roger Ebert is open to giving the film a second chance. After the death of his long-time partner Siskel, Ebert expressed an open mind on Ebert and Roeper, saying, “I still feel badly about how Rossellini was treated (and so does she, judging by her autobiography). But Lynch is a good director and I should re-visit the film.” (E) The line between masterpiece and trash is understandable. The film thrusts you into the deep end, both with its subject matter and its ability to challenge your notions of film-watching. It stole my film innocence.

I felt dirty, guilty, and stupidly naive watching it. But for anyone still hesitant to see this movie, or dreading to return to it, I’ll tell you the same thing Jeffrey tells Sandy: “There are opportunities in life for gaining knowledge and experience. Sometimes it’s necessary to take a risk.” That risk may not pay off the first time you see it. You will realize it one day, weeks, perhaps years later, as you walk outside on a routine day and see your own robin. A haunting rendition of Bobby Vinton will begin in your head. Your mind will wander, conjuring fears of the dark underworld around you, and arousing suspicions as to which of your peers may be a Frank Booth or a Dorothy Vallens, or even worse, how much of a Frank Booth or Dorothy Vallens is within you. And when the epiphany is over, you will shake your head, snap out of it, and look back at the robin and smile. But as you walk away, you know that you’ll never look at the world the same.

Citations CITE A: David Thomson, Film Dictionary CITE B: Peter Travers, 100 Maverick Movies, Rolling Stone magazine CITE C: rogerebert.com CITE D: Siskel & Ebert at the Movies 1986 (from DVD special features) Blue Velvet (9/11) Movie CLIP - Joy Ride With Frank (1986) HD - YouTube Blue Velvet (9/11) Movie CLIP - Joy Ride With Frank (1986) HD Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. The interactive transcript could not be loaded. Loading... Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Published on Mar 19, 2015 Blue Velvet movie clips: BUY THE MOVIE: Don't miss the HOTTEST NEW TRAILERS: CLIP DESCRIPTION: Frank (Dennis Hopper) forces Jeffrey (Kyle MacLachlan) to go on a "joy ride" with him, Dorothy (Isabella Rossellini) and his boys.

FILM DESCRIPTION: Director David Lynch crafted this hallucinogenic mystery-thriller that probes beneath the cheerful surface of suburban America to discover sadomasochistic violence, corruption, drug abuse, crime and perversion. Kyle Maclachlan stars as Jeffrey Beaumont, a square-jawed young man who returns to his picture-perfect small town when his father suffers a stroke. Walking through a field near his home, Jeff discovers a severed human ear, which he immediately brings to the police. Their disinterest sparks Jeff's curiosity, and he is soon drawn into a dangerous drama that's being played out by a lounge singer, Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini) and the ether-addicted Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper). The sociopathic Booth has kidnapped Dorothy's young son and is using the child as a bargaining chip to repeatedly beat, humiliate and rape Dorothy. Though he's drawn to the virginal, wholesome Sandy Williams (Laura Dern), Jeff is also aroused by Dorothy and in trying to aid her, he discovers his dark side.

As the film nears its conclusion, our hero learns that many more indivduals are tacitly involved with Frank, including a suave, lip-synching singer, Ben (Dean Stockwell), who is minding the kidnapped boy. Director Lynch explored many similar themes of the "disease" lying just under the surface of the small town, all-American faade in his later television series Twin Peaks (1990-91). CREDITS: TM & © MGM (1986) Cast: Brad Dourif, Dennis Hopper, J. Michael Hunter, Kyle MacLachlan, Jack Nance, Dean Stockwell, Isabella Rossellini Director: David Lynch Producers: Fred C. Caruso, Richard A. Roth Screenwriter: David Lynch WHO ARE WE? The MOVIECLIPS channel is the largest collection of licensed movie clips on the web. Here you will find unforgettable moments, scenes and lines from all your favorite films. Made by movie fans, for movie fans.

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR MOVIE CHANNELS: View All Critic Reviews (67) Audience Reviews for Blue Velvet The debacle of adapting Frank Herbert's Dune in 1984, is now pretty much common knowledge among film enthusiasts. To put it plainly, it didn't do well at the box office and was even tagged with the moniker of being the Heaven's Gate of science fiction films. So upset was David Lynch with studio interference and losing final cut of the film that he vowed never to work with a big budget again. He regrouped, however, and two years later he delivered one of his own original scripts in the form of Blue Velvet. Not only did it put him back on the map but it's still widely regarded as one the best films from the 1980's. Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) is an impressionable young man who return's back to his home town to care for his ill father. After a visit at the hospital he takes a short cut through an abandoned field and finds a severed human ear. He takes it to the police before embarking on his own investigation.

This leads him to nightclub singer Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini) and a criminal underworld that he had no idea existed. The opening of the film has such a striking beauty to it with crisp and colourful cinematography by Frederick Elmes while Lynch doesn't mince his words on his message. White picket fences with vibrant red roses, a fire truck strolls by with a waving fireman while a man hoses down his manicured garden. It's quaint and calming imagery. Suddenly, the hose gets stuck on a branch, the water splutters and the infuriated gardener suffers a stroke. He falls to the ground while a toddler looks on and a dog's only interest is in catching the water from the hose which is still in the grasp of the fallen gardener. It's here that Lynch turns his camera to the grass and the dark underbelly of this picture-perfect, suburban lifestyle is exposed in a colony of insects. We then cut to a billboard saying "Welcome to Lumberton" - where it is later described as "a town where the people really know how much wood a woodchuck chucks". There's a playfulness on show and Lynch imbues the whole affair with satire and a deep cynicism.

From here, Lynch takes his time with his narrative - which, when you look at it now, is deceptively simple. He uses a very linear approach throughout the beginning of the film. Lumberton is a middle class suburbia where seemingly everyone is pleasant and there's a feeling of safety. It has an air of mystery to it, though, after the discovery of the severed ear. It's from the investigations and uncovering the truth that the film gets more bizarre by the minute and the Lynchian weirdness begins to creep in. This is predominantly with the arrival of Dennis Hopper's Frank Booth. From the plethora of Lynch's obscure and unhinged characters, Frank is the one that seems to get the most attention. It's not hard to see why, though, as this deranged, amyl-nitrate huffing psychopath is a character that lingers long in the memory. It's an Oscar worthy performance from Hopper but, strangely, the academy choose to nominate him in the supporting category for Hoosiers. As good as he was in that film, Frank Booth has become one of, if not, the most iconic performance of his career.

For all it's strangeness, though, effectively Blue Velvet is a film-noir. It has all the hallmarks of the sub-genre but, as is usually the case, Lynch puts his own spin on the proceedings. It's dark, gloomy and hugely atmospheric. It's also not without its disturbing elements as it delves into the darkest recesses of the psyche and explores the psychosexual motivations of its characters - which is hinted at with a quote from Laura Dern's angelic Sandy - "I can't figure out if you're a detective or a pervert". This line perfectly sums up the juxtaposition that courses throughout the film. Lynch is interested in capturing the different extremes; in society, human relationships and Freudian and Oedipal subconscious desires. All the while, he keeps us reminded that dreams can so easily lead to nightmares. If there's one moment that showcases Lynch's ability to project mood and capture the extremes it's with a cameo from Dean Stockwell as the suave, glad-handling dandy, Ben. His miming rendition of Roy Orbison's In Dreams using a worklight is simply one of the best scenes Lynch has ever put onscreen.

It's at once hilariously comical yet also surreal and deeply fuckin' creepy. A startlingly beautiful yet genuinely horrific tale and proof that Lynch is probably the most subversive of filmmakers working today. This erotic and perversely self indulgent piece of work remains one his best films. To think that this came out in the mid 80's is proof of Lynch's untamed brilliance and majesty. Mark Walker Mark Walker Blue Velvet Plot and Cast | Movies.com DVD FULL SYNOPSIS Director David Lynch crafted this hallucinogenic mystery-thriller that probes beneath the cheerful surface of suburban America to discover sadomasochistic violence, corruption, drug abuse, crime and perversion. Kyle Maclachlan stars as Jeffrey Beaumont, a square-jawed young man who returns to his picture-perfect small town when his father suffers a stroke. Walking through a field near his home, Jeff discovers a severed human ear, which he immediately brings to the police. Their disinterest sparks Jeff's curiosity, and he is soon drawn into a dangerous drama that's being played out by a lounge singer, Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini) and the ether-addicted Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper).

The sociopathic Booth has kidnapped Dorothy's young son and is using the child as a bargaining chip to repeatedly beat, humiliate and rape Dorothy. Though he's drawn to the virginal, wholesome Sandy Williams (Laura Dern), Jeff is also aroused by Dorothy and in trying to aid her, he discovers his dark side. As the film nears its conclusion, our hero learns that many more indivduals are tacitly involved with Frank, including a suave, lip-synching singer, Ben (Dean Stockwell), who is minding the kidnapped boy. Director Lynch explored many similar themes of the "disease" lying just under the surface of the small town, all-American façade in his later television series Twin Peaks (1990-91). ~ Karl Williams, Rovi Release date:December 14, 2001 Blue Velvet (7/11) Movie CLIP - Baby Wants Blue Velvet (1986) HD - YouTube Blue Velvet (7/11) Movie CLIP - Baby Wants Blue Velvet (1986) HD Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content.

Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Published on Mar 19, 2015 Blue Velvet movie clips: BUY THE MOVIE: Don't miss the HOTTEST NEW TRAILERS: CLIP DESCRIPTION: Jeffrey (Kyle MacLachlan) spies on Frank (Dennis Hopper) and Dorothy (Isabella Rossellini) and their "blue velvet" ritual. FILM DESCRIPTION: Director David Lynch crafted this hallucinogenic mystery-thriller that probes beneath the cheerful surface of suburban America to discover sadomasochistic violence, corruption, drug abuse, crime and perversion. Kyle Maclachlan stars as Jeffrey Beaumont, a square-jawed young man who returns to his picture-perfect small town when his father suffers a stroke. Walking through a field near his home, Jeff discovers a severed human ear, which he immediately brings to the police. Their disinterest sparks Jeff's curiosity, and he is soon drawn into a dangerous drama that's being played out by a lounge singer, Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini) and the ether-addicted Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper).

The sociopathic Booth has kidnapped Dorothy's young son and is using the child as a bargaining chip to repeatedly beat, humiliate and rape Dorothy. Though he's drawn to the virginal, wholesome Sandy Williams (Laura Dern), Jeff is also aroused by Dorothy and in trying to aid her, he discovers his dark side. As the film nears its conclusion, our hero learns that many more indivduals are tacitly involved with Frank, including a suave, lip-synching singer, Ben (Dean Stockwell), who is minding the kidnapped boy. Director Lynch explored many similar themes of the "disease" lying just under the surface of the small town, all-American faade in his later television series Twin Peaks (1990-91). CREDITS: Cast: Dennis Hopper, Kyle MacLachlan, Isabella Rossellini Director: David Lynch Producers: Fred C. Caruso, Richard A. Roth Screenwriter: David Lynch WHO ARE WE? The MOVIECLIPS channel is the largest collection of licensed movie clips on the web. Here you will find unforgettable moments, scenes and lines from all your favorite films. Made by movie fans, for movie fans.

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Question: Which actress played nightclub singer Dorothy in the 1986 film ‘Blue Velvet’?
Answer: Isabella Rossellini